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Knitting Factory Sets September Opening for Brooklyn Location

By Ben Sisario August 11, 2009 12:00 pmAugust 11, 2009 12:00 pm

Josh Haner/The New York TimesFans gathered at one of the final performance at the Knitting Factory’s TriBeCa location in 2008.

The Knitting Factory, which ceased regular programming in TriBeCa at the end of last year after two decades in Manhattan, will reopen in a smaller space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Sept. 9, the club’s parent company, Knitting Factory Entertainment, announced. Located in the former space of the Luna Lounge — itself a Manhattan transplant — at 361 Metropolitan Avenue, the new club will present the Brooklyn band Les Savy Fav on its opening night, and future shows are to include Boss Hog, Rasputina, the No Neck Blues Band and Titus Andronicus, among others. The renovated space will include a restored 1930s bar from West Virginia and windows salvaged from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the announcement said.

The Knitting Factory opened in 1987 on East Houston Street on the Lower East Side, earning a wide reputation for its mix of rock, jazz and avant-garde music, and in 1994 it moved to a three-floor space on Leonard Street in TriBeCa. Its lease there expired in July, and although last New Year’s Eve had been advertised (and celebrated) as the club’s final night in Manhattan, it has since been used for occasional shows. The Brooklyn space will be one piece in a growing Knitting Factory empire: in addition to much larger clubs in Boise, Idaho, and Spokane, Wash., that the company acquired in recent years, it also operates a national touring agency and an artist management company. A sister club in Los Angeles that opened in 2000 will close this fall when its lease expires, and a new home has not yet been found there, Morgan Margolis, the chief executive of Knitting Factory Entertainment, said in an interview recently.